Tactical games: Kiting

This is an issue that, as the AI guy, I'm still struggling with. How to defend against this?

I've been tempted to have the AI do it to the human but the more I think about it, the more unsatisfying that would be.

In beta 1, the kiting issue isn't huge because the tactical maps are so small. But in Beta 2, they start to get a lot more interesting (I have one map that is basically inspired from Demigod complete with multiple paths).

I'd be interested in hear different ideas on how to prevent excessive kiting.

This is an interesting point though, but I'm a bit hesitant to speculate what the devs have in mind regarding fun, but adding alternate win conditions should speed up combat. If one side wants to run around in circles taking advantage of their increased speed, the other side should have a counter for it. By having a control point mechanism, you can either force them to do battle or they have to withdraw from the fight.

This thread is about thinking of new solutions. Yours is certainly one of the most unique I have read. I am just afraid of the slippery slope that some of my favorite FPS games have gone down. Control points and certainly belong in some situations.

How would you set up control points so that they are only necessary when you are being kited? It would probably have to be a 9 round counter for the tile.

I don't think people need to keep suggesting ways to nerf ranged combat, my understanding is that it is already pretty weak. Being able to take more turns just scales really well with all offensive abilities. For example if one had to choose between doubling damage and doubling the number of turns one can take, turns is always better, because it results in the same total damage and gives more movement. Further it allows dividing damage over more units which is good if the enemy has low health relative to the strength of your attacks. There are other benefits as well, but taking a lot of turns is really good. This is why kiting is possible, but it also allows other bad things like alpha striking an opposing army before they can even act and disable locking.

But the same things that make taking lots of turns really strong also make it really weak. Consider two units, unit A does 10 damage and unit B does 5 damage but attacks twice as often as A. Both do 10 damage in a round. However if we have a spell that lowers the damage per attack each does by 1 A now does 9 in a round while B does 8. Just like linear (as opposed to percentage based) buffs are better placed on units with high numbers of turns linear debuffs hurt them more especially if they sacrificed other stats to get high initiative. Periodic healing or beneficial effects are also really good on high initiative units, similarly periodic damage effects could really punish high initiative units if they occur every turn because high initiative units take more turns (of course this isn't really true if the effect just lasts for a certain number of turns, it will deal it's damage quicker, but have the same total effect regardless of how often a unit takes turns). Along the same lines because units with high initiative attack a lot could we have skills that punish attacking? Attacking a fire elemental carries a chance to take fire damage? A unit whose defense increases the more often it takes damage?

Finally I have a question (since I am not in the beta) which is what is the opportunity cost of getting high initiative? If I went for melee damage instead would my damage output be comparable? I think this problem would probably be solved by just making initiative grow more slowly for heroes, or faster for non-heroes so it scales more comparable to other ways of increasing effectiveness. As others have suggested this could be done by making the base initiative 100 or just giving out less of it.

Another option is to implement implement a sort of round system, where a round is the number of turns it takes for each unit to move at least once and then set a maximum number of turns a unit can take in a round. If you have crazy initiative you might get two turns right at the start of the round, but then have to wait until the slowest unit goes to take another turn.

tl:dr IMO Initiative is the cause of kiting and other imbalances. Punish lots of turns with debuffs and periodic damage effects or just make it scale better.

Unfortunately, to answer your question, there is no real cost to choosing Initiative. Most of the testers agree that it needs to scale up slower than it does. It also needs to have some significant opportunity cost.

Mounted Archers that kite are a big problem. In the early game not so much, but by the time they get longbows or yew longbows they really start to make fights lopsided. You can't poison a person if they can break contact or never come near you. This is why I made a poison dart ability. I had the same thought about Initiative making poison very effective. I also made a drug version that makes the unit potentially attack its own army. There are plenty of ways to counter it, given that the devs implement them.

I think the simplest solution is still to just make longbows have some sort of movement penalty. It could be that they can't move and shoot on the same turn. It could be that they have a penalty to movement.

I think the best solution is a total revamp of the Initiative System. That won't happen though.

I think not moving and shooting in the same turn is pretty reasonable, since it is pretty common in this type of game (though since I actually like playing the shooty armies I hate it). I still think that kiting would be a much smaller problem if there wasn't the ability to take a million turns, which is primarily initiative being problematic.

As for not being able to make contact that's why I suggested the debuffs be spells. My understanding is that champions are the problem as far as the I-take-a-million-turns-you-lose-problem-goes. It doesn't seem too ridiculous to need at least a minor champion casting spells to counter the buffed up champion.

Also what I forgot to mention is that the other way to get more turns is to have more units. You may take 3 turns to my one, but if I have 3 units to your 1 we're getting the same number of turns (though there is a turn quality question here). Can one hero kite 9 enemy units or is this just a one on one problem? Do heroes with crazy initiative one shot most regular dudes?

Expand ZOC even further, with penalties - if you engage in melee, to disengage allows one movement square only on that initiative turn, possibly allowing the opponents you are fleeing to get a free attack at your back. If you go again, fine, run far away. You paid the price by moving one square on a turn, and possibly allowing the opponent a free swing.

Allow forest cover to mitigate range damage and instill some range penalties and/or bonuses. Spread the forest out so the player can utilize forest squares to mitigate any range damage.

Implement los if possible (unlikely I know)

Units can move into forest squares on the strategic map, why not in tactical?

Just thinking out loud based on Mr. Sid Meirs' Pirates. I loved dancing with hot Dutch broads in that game. Never married 'em though.

I like Line of Sight limitations which makes terrain matter more. Archers in wooded areas would become much less effective.

Static movement penalties could be applied to armor types;

Light -1

Medium -2

Heavy -3

This may aid in reducing the uber loaded hero on kiting.

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Unit turns could also be broken down into 2 steps per combat round;

Move - Move

Move - Strike

Strike - Move

Spell (takes full turn)

Guard (full turn)

Initiative determining which units go first/last, but all units only get the 2 actions during a round of combat. This also prevents units with super high Initiative from getting 3 rounds of beatdown on opposing units that have to sit there and take it.

I think poison damage should be applied as n damage every x pulses of initiative. A unit's initiative shouldn't impact poison damage.

Initiative should impact attack speed, but not movement speed. If a unit acts twice as often, it should move half as quickly. Maybe that would solve the kiting issue. The downside is you add in some fuzzy math. Math fuzzies are not warm for some folks. Also some turns a unit might move 1 square, in other turns 2. Spellcasting should also be a set number of pulses, with a promotion/stat to decrease this time. Casting a spell should count as ending your turn though.

I'm also still a fan of time limits for tac battles- in AOW2SM, this reduced the impact of kiting- you couldn't kill units with it, just stave off defeat.

Maybe after x turns a control point pops up on the midpoint of the map, or the center of the castle/town in a siege battle, and whoever gets there first wins, and the other side retreats (and loses its movement points on the strategic map)

Line of sight is a cool idea but doesn't really solve the problem. Being able to break line of sight prevents melee from dying to kiting, but it doesn't allow melee to get close to the kiter because what allows the kiter to kite is their turn/movement advantage. It basically creates a stalemate where melee hides in the trees and ranged waits for them to come out. Neither can win which in my opinion is not any more fun.

As for the control points I think this actually makes it even easier for a kiter to win. They no longer need to worry about anything but running away until control point time at which point they use their superior movement to get there first. The way I see it you could do it 3 ways:

1. The control point spawns in a random spot. Though by luck the kited will win sometimes this favors the kiter since he gets more moves.

2. The control points spawns in a single fixed position. If you know where the point is going to spawn you can just walk there and hope you get your turn before the kiter once it spawns. This of course leads to a different dumb strategy of building a super defensive unit and camping the control point until it spawns.

3. Each side has a control point. The problem here is if you abandon your control point to get the kiter's control point, he will probably get to yours first. If you guard your control point it is a stalemate. If you do a mixture the question is whether the kiter can either kill the guys you sent before they get his control point, or if he can kill enough guards to get to your control point. Either way with his large number of turns the odds seem to be in his favor unless you have a lot of guys in which case you should be able to pin down the kiter by trapping him in a corner.

All in all it seems to me like adding control points increases rather than decreases the number of dumb strategies, and could very well lead to a lot of frustrating losses because the enemy happened to be standing in the right place or got lucky with a dodge and captured the control point.

I don't think horse archers are going to be that much of a problem. You either need to have fast troops, or ranged attackers on your side to counter them. If you don't it is fair that you lose the battle. Now, if mounted troops can't fight a fair fight against mounted archers, that is a problem.

I like the control points idea, but I don't see a nice way to implement them. The best I can think of is adding some controlling terrain elements into the maps. The one holding it will gain initiative, enemy will lose initiative. Probably not in on/off way, but something more linear: first turn controlling the point gives a little effect, after 5 turns a lot of effect. The controlling points could be in the middle of the map, or maybe when defending a city in the defenders end of the map.

I am afraid the control points idea falls directly into the "doesn't fit the design of FE" category. But there is something to the idea that the units are fighting for control of the tactical battle map by trying to control the important points. Currently it doesn't matter where you are positioned on the map, it is mostly about formation in the current beta.